How to Easily Create a Responsive WordPress Slider with Soliloquy

Sliders are commonly used on the front page of business or portfolio websites. There are hundreds of WordPress slider plugins out there, each one with its own features. However, we have heard from our users that most slider plugins are just too complicated for them. In this article we will show you how to easily add a WordPress slider on your site with Soliloquy. The goal here is to find the best WordPress slider plugin that is easy to use, works with all themes, and is responsive meaning it fits all screens (smartphones, desktop, and tablets).

Why Use Soliloquy as Your WordPress Slider?

Soliloquy is a robust responsive WordPress slider plugin rich in features, and it is fairly easy to manage. Here are some of the things that we like about Soliloquy over other plugins:

Soliloquy adheres to WordPress coding standards and best practices.

It uses a custom post type to handle sliders which makes it easier to import/export sliders with any WordPress Backup solution.

It is 100% translation ready which is great for international audiences.

It is SEO friendly. You can add meta data, titles, alt text and captions to each slide.

Ajax powered drag-drop slide sorting makes it very easy to use.

Responsive WordPress slider with touch swipe support for touch-enabled devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Developer friendly with great documentation and 50+ hooks and filters. You can easily white-label it if needed.

Aside from all the features, Soliloquy is pretty affordable compared to other slider plugins. Base option is only $19. WPBeginner users get an exclusive 25% discount by using the Soliloquy coupon which makes the deal even better. Use code: WPBEGINNER.

Video Tutorial

If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.

Creating a WordPress Slider with Soliloquy

First thing you need to do is purchase Soliloquy. Once you have Soliloquy, you need to install and activate it (see how to install a WordPress plugin). Upon activation, the plugin will add a new Soliloquy menu in your WordPress admin. Clicking on it will take you to the sliders list page which will be empty because you haven’t created any sliders yet. To add a new slider, click on the Soliloquy » Add New.

You want to start out by adding your slider title. Next click on Upload slides button. A popup, much like the default WordPress media uploader will appear. You can upload images for your slide, choose images from media library, add video slides by adding URLs of YouTube or Vimeo videos, or create an HTML slide.

As for HTML slides, you need to paste the HTML code. This html could be anything that you want. One example would be to add an email opt-in form for your newsletter or a call to action button.

In this article, we will show you how to create an image slider in WordPress. Click on the Select Files to upload slide images from your computer.

Once you have selected the image slides, they will be uploaded to your media library. Click on Insert Slides button to add these slides into your slider. After inserting your slides, you can configure other options on the add new slider page. While you can adjust the default slider size, the responsive ability allows it to automatically adjust for smaller screens. The default sizes is the relative point as your slider adjusts itself on different devices.

Among other options you can choose the slider speed, slide animation effect, transition effect, etc. Once you are satisfied with the settings click on publish button to save your slider and make it publicly available.

Adding a WordPress Slider in Posts/Page

Now that you have created your slider, the next step is to insert that slider in a post or a page. Open the post editor, select the location where you want to add the slider, and click on the Add Slider button next to the media uploader.

You will see boxes for each slider you have created. Choose the slider you want to insert and then click Insert Slider button.

This will add a slider shortcode into your post. You can now save or preview your post and see the slider in action.

Editing and Updating a WordPress Slider with Soliloquy

The great thing about creating a WordPress slider with Soliloquy is that you can edit your slider any time you want without editing the post or page where you have inserted the slider. Simply click on Soliloquy icon in your admin sidebar and then click Edit link below the slider you want to update.

Now lets edit the slider we created above. Remember we told you that sliders created with Soliloquy are SEO friendly. You can add meta descriptions, title, URL, and captions to your individual slides. Click on the edit button next to an individual slide in your slider.

This will open a pop-up where you can enter image title, alt text, link your slide to a URL and enter a caption. You can also use HTML in your caption in case you want to add a newsletter opt-in form. Once you have entered the meta information for the slide click on the Save slide button.

Your changes will automatically reflect in the slider wherever it is embedded on your site.

Adding Soliloquy WordPress Slider in Templates and Widgets

Soliloquy comes with a widget which you can use to add a slider into any widgetized area on your website. Go to Appearance » Widgets and drag-drop Soliloquy widget to your sidebar. You will see the list of slides you have created. Choose the one you want to insert and save the widget. Since sliders created with Soliloquy are responsive, they will automatically adjust to fit your sidebar’s width.

Each Soliloquy slider has its own unique shortcode and a function. You can use this function to add the slider anywhere in your theme template files. To obtain the function code, click on Soliloquy icon in your WordPress admin. This will display the list of sliders you have created along with the shortcode and function next to the slider title. Copy and paste the function code accordingly.

Final Thoughts

Soliloquy is one of the better WordPress slider plugins that we have seen in the market. Trust us, we have tested many of them. After extensively using Soliloquy, we are truly impressed by its speed and power.

Most slider plugins are bloated with code and are poorly documented. Soliloquy is light-weight and fast. It is built for both users and developers. They have done a great job to follow all WordPress standards while making the slider extremely easy to use for beginners. Their code documentation makes it easy for other developers to customize and extend the functionality as needed.

We can easily say that Soliloquy has now moved up as our #1 choice for a WordPress slider plugin.

We hope that this article helped you add a slider in your WordPress site. For feedback and questions please leave a comment below. Also don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @wpbeginner.

21 Comments

i have successfully added several images to my slider but there are two images that show up as black boxes upon upload. they will upload just fine into the wordpress media library but not into the soliloquy slider. any help would be appreciated. thank you!

You can add CTA buttons on your slider with Soliloquy. You can adjust slider height and width from settings. Soliloquy is responsive by default so you can set a maximum width and it will automatically adjust itself to user’s screen size.

I need a portrait slider for images that are consistently H-920 X W-736 and I do not want a whole
lot of black space around it, and I haven’t found out anything on the internet, except that a bunch of other people are also looking for small portrait sliders .

Can you have more than one slider on the main page?
I am wanting to add a smaller slider with current products up front and easy to find for my customers. I also want to add a link on each photo to get to the product page.

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